The
late Advaita sage, Ramesh S. Balsekar was a disciple of Nisargadatta Maharaj,
himself a renowned Advaita master. Balsekar was drawn to Advaita as a boy,
and particularly enjoyed reading the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and Wei
Wu Wei as an adult. After his retirement from banking, Ramesh discovered
Nisargadatta Maharaj, who became his guru. Ramesh wrote nearly 50 books
on Advaita, and starting in 1982, met spiritual seekers daily at his home
in Mumbai. He died September 27, 2009. The Editor's Notes for Balsekar's book Consciousness Speaks recount the highlights of Ramesh's life, and hint at the enthusiastic devotion that contact with this delightful teacher could inspire:
"The mere incident of enlightenment does not necessarily
confer an ability to communicate the concomitant understanding.
However, in Ramesh's case that ability has assumed remarkable
depth. This organism known as Ramesh is amply endowed with compassion,
patience, humor and eloquence. Though the dialogues in his books
can convey but a fraction of the impact that his presence can
have, as you read you may get a sense of the energy that fills
the room as Ramesh warms to his subject.
Still, what is most remarkable about Ramesh is his very ordinariness
and the very ordinariness of his teaching. Though elaborate theoretical
structures may be erected around it -- his concept of the working
mind and the thinking mind would be a good example of this --
the essence of the teaching is simplicity itself. He offers no miracles,
no cures, no special powers; in fact, all he really offers is Nothing,
that Nothing, that we all truly are.
And while it is often said that Ramesh appears ordinary, no
one could ever say he is mediocre. It is his complete lack of
pretense that moderates the light of his accomplishments from
a blinding brilliance to a warm glow. In his education, both
in India and at the London School of Economics, he was always
near the top of his class but never at the top of his class.
In his leisure pursuits, as a body builder, competitive badminton
player and golfer his standings were always superior though
rarely superlative.
Ramesh married Sharda in 1940 and they raised three children. The eldest
was Ajit, brilliant but with a life-long history of health problems.
He died in 1990 at the age of forty-nine. Next came his daughter,
Jaya, who married and then moved to Bangalore where she runs
a successful dairy business. His youngest son, Shivdas, is also
married and is the senior executive in the Indian branch of
a multi-national pharmaceutical company.
It was in his career, which began in 1940 as a clerk in the
Bank of India, that Ramesh's brilliance truly shone through.
Despite lacking a burning ambition, he steadily rose through
the ranks until his retirement in 1977 as that bank's General
Manager (what is known in the U.S. as company president or CEO).
During his ten years of service as its head, he guided the bank
through its most rapid and successful growth period, overseeing
the hiring of thousands of people and the opening of hundreds
of new branches in India and around the globe.
Shortly after his mandatory retirement at age sixty, Ramesh
read a magazine article about a guru named Nisargadatta Maharaj
who was teaching about Advaita (non-duality) in a poor area
of Bombay. It was a subject in which he had always had a keen
interest. He went to hear him, knew at once that this was his
ultimate guru and within three or four months began translating
for Maharaj at his daily morning talks. It was not long before
Ramesh too experienced the ultimate understanding.
Retired bank president, golfer, husband and father doesn't
fit the stereotype of an Indian guru... and perhaps that accounts,
at least in part, for the fact that 90% of the people who come
to him are Westerners. His background and education combine
with his understanding to make him a master who is an ideal
bridge between East and West, the spiritual and the material."
Ramesh
Balsekar touched the lives of a generation of spiritual seekers, seekers
drawn to a deeper investigation into the experience of being alive. He
was an energetic, imaginative, unpredictable teacher. We loved his compassion,
clarity, questioning spirit and encouragement. But his humanity also left
a deep mark.
"Twenty-two years ago Ramesh came into my life... To have been able to walk beside him for all this time and to have been able to bow at his feet has been for me the greatest of life's blessings. I shall miss not being able to sit with Ramesh, to watch a cricket match together or to share some chocolate or to laugh at some silly joke he reads from the newspaper. It is not the greatness of the man I will miss most -- his greatness remains undiminished by his death -- it is the little things, the human things."
- Wayne Liquorman
Wayne's
hour-long remembrance on the day of Ramesh's death - listen
now
or download it as a FREE MP3 file.
A very good website by one of Ramesh's Indian publishers - Ramesh Balsekar website
An attempt to list all of the books Ramesh wrote - List of Ramesh's books
Examples of Ramesh's Teaching
Meditations from A NET OF JEWELS
Transcript
of Satsang July 25, 2006
Transcript
of Satsang January 12, 2001
YouTube videos
Sources for Ramesh Balsekar's books and videos
Books
Videos
Videos
in Europe
Ramesh speaks about the end of suffering.